Teed Off in Kelowna

Day Three of our Okanagan odyssey saw us going for a family mini-golf excursion, and what a predictably hapless foursome we present. Kim is about as deftly-coordinated as an arthritic moose. Young Abby's approach to golf is to stickhandle toward the hole like Phil Esposito on a breakaway. As for me, I am by turns astonishingly lucky (hole-in-one on the 17th thanks to a five-foot rebound off a curb) and pathetically inept (my approach on this hole

saw me suffering the effects of more strokes than Dick Clark).

Two-year-old Sam, pictured here sitting smugly by the Deadwood-inspired facade on the 16th green,

 

carried the day by scoring a consistent two strokes on every single hole, owing to his strategy of picking up his ball after each tee-off, walking it to the cup and dropping it in. I'm actually kind of proud of him for figuring out so swiftly the pointless futility of golf.

Oh, right...the point of this blog entry? It was this sign, introducing us to the 6th hole:

Speaking of hit-and-miss (or, I suppose, miss-and-miss in this case), we have here both absent and superfluous punctuation. There should, of course, be an apostrophe in NATURES to indicate who that gardener is in service to. And when will sign-writers learn that quotation marks are not for slapping around a phrase to give emphasis? In fact, because the scare claws are often employed to indicate irony, the play can backfire like a florescent green golf ball ricocheting off a windmill fan. Although now that I look at that mangy patch of moonscape depicted here, perhaps the claim of "quality service" is indeed meant to be ironic.

Maybe it's Time to Invest in Some Apostrophes

I seem to have developed an inexplicable fetish for the TV show Dragon's Den--you know, the one where wannabe or fledgling entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of venture capitalists who tell them that their valuations are "insane." Now that repeats are airing daily and we've got this space-age PVR recording device, it's all too easy to score along at home while watching pitches into the wee hours.

Last night I screened a couple more eps, including one that featured a "mom-preneur" who designs punk-themed clothes for toddlers, such as this t-shirt:

Punk may not be dead, but her pitch was. The Dragons withdrew their offer of one million dollars for 10% of the company when they realized she had left out the apostrophe in what is clearly supposed to be a contraction of "Punk is." Okay, not really--they just told her they didn't see the big-time potential. But if they had taken her to task on the missing punctuation, it might have served as a warning to future businesspeople who take the language into their own hands.

Like this woman in the following episode, who was trying to get funding for her line of plus-sized clothes:

There is no such word as womens. When something is attached to a confederacy of women--women's rights, women's fashions, women's unseemly tendency to gush and swoon over the "dreaminess" of Denzel Washington while their squat, pale husbands are sitting right there--the word required is the possessive, and it is the apostrophe that is essential.

Apostrofeeble

The arts and culture blog Jewcy has posted its list of the ten best podcasts of 2010. The only reason I know this (I admit I've never heard of Jewcy before) is because the Slate Culture Gabfest linked to the list on their Facebook page. I really enjoy the Gabfest--it's my favorite listening while making curry chicken casserole--so I checked out the link, and at the top of the list...well, what a coincidence:

1. Slate Culture Gabfest

Three articulate and seasoned writers from Slate’s roster discuss news stories, TV/films, and books with enough wit to keep it entertaining, while holding back enough on the pretension just enough to keep it palatable.  At the end of every episode, each host, “endorses” a cultural artifact about which they are enthusiastic, be it a book about a TV series, article, or perhaps, an apple pie.  Whether or not you read Slate, The Gabfest hosts make for great company during your walk to work and Dana Steven’s tastes in film and TV tend to be right on the money.  The Slate Culture Gabfest is the perfect podcast for the modern discerning culture-phile.

Always nice to have one's tastes validated by an arbitrary list. The problem here is that the name of Slate's astute and insightful film critic, the one with the winsome podcast charm, is Dana Stevens. And that means the possessive should be Dana Stevens' or Dana Stevens's, depending on which faction of the language police nerdocracy you wish to annoy.

Another apostrophe violation occurs in the blurb for the third entry on the list:

The New Yorker Fiction Podcast gives contemporary fiction writers the opportunity to read some of their favorite short stories that have been published in The New Yorker and then discuss them with the magazines fiction editor.

 I'm sure said editor, Deborah Treisman, would recoil at the missing apostrophe in "magazines." She is, after all, a valuable possession of The New Yorker.

And while we're on the subject of possessives, let's not forget how to apostrophize a plural possessive, as demonstrated by this tweet today from the reliably goofy Andy Borowitz:

"Twilight" sweeps Virgins' Choice Awards

The Case of the 400-Dollar Hyphen

I don't want to keep picking on the notices Abby brings home from school, but take a look at this:

First of all, the header. There is more than one community school in District #43, so by rights that should be Community Schools'. Or should it? Maybe that's supposed to be an apostrophe-less plural and not a possessive at all. It's hard to tell, because the opening sentence begins with "Our Community School's are pleased to offer...", a clear case of an apostrophe poking its way into a plural, so forgive me for being non-plussed.

But the bigger issue is the misplaced hyphen. A niggling detail, you say? Not at all. These summer day camps are being offered at 80 bucks a pop, so at first glance it seems like quite the deal for six weeks of kid-storage.  Alas, as the ensuing details make clear, these are not SIX-WEEK LONG camps. They are, rather, SIX WEEK-LONG camps, at 80 dollars per.

I could probably be persuaded to spill 80 beans for a summer-long program, but for five days of producing papier mache puppets and finger paintings? I'd rather spend the money doubling down on the Merlot and just muddle through the week. Anyway, the point is, that is one misleading hyphen.

The Year of the Apostrophe

This school year is still in session for several more weeks, but already we're getting notices to prepare us for Abby's ascension to Grade 2, like this one pimping complete school supply kits for next fall.

[click to enlarge]

First of all, the sub-literate name Edu-Pac  (unworthy of a school-sponsored enterprise, if you ask me) is inconsistently given the quotation mark treatment. Here, but not there, and in one instance with an opening quotation mark and a drafty breeze where the closing one should go. In that same instance, Pac's is garnished with a superfluous apostrophe. Then there is that sub-heading (cradled by needless quotation marks)--with the awkward frustration shopping wording that invites mis-reading. And we won't even get into the cheesy clip-art design.

But let's take a closer look at that third paragraph:

In addition to the basic package, you may select the individual items your student requires or reuse last years.

Since years are not reusable, we can only assume they mean the items from last year, or last year's items. That makes it a possessive and that means now is the time to bring that apostrophe into service.

That may not be a particularly interesting error--or even the worst one on that flyer--but it stood out for me because just this morning I saw a similar slip-up, but in reverse. In recounting the stunning victory by the local hockey heroes in Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Province reporter Jason Botchford enthused:

This isn't the dump-and-chase Canucks of season's past.

So true*. But here, seasons past is just a poetic way of saying past seasons. No apostrophes need apply.

*And as someone who finds the dump-and-chase strategy to be the most vulgar abomination in hockey--a caveman approach that negates the displays of speed and finesse that make the sport great--and who is known to become apoplectic when his team does it on the power play (!)--I can only say, Hallelujah.

Walk of Shame

Walking back from lunch yesterday through the quaint streets of downtown PoCo, I came across a series of signs within a few feet of each other that warrant picayune picking on. First up, the Dairy Queen on the corner:

We've covered the whole confounding "due to" thing before, and this usage clearly doesn't meet the criteria we all agreed on at that time. "Closed for renovations" would have worked just fine. Aside from that, though, I am curious about those "boxes of novelties."

Farther down the block is this establishment:

Apostrophes are obviously not among the accessories available here. That should be "Ladies' Fashion." There are some people, by the way--people of questionable breeding with sloped foreheads, for the most part--who argue that this usage is acceptable on the grounds that "ladies" is serving as a plural adjective rather than a possessive. To them I say: when's the last time you saw a sign touting "Men Fashion?"

But wait a minute. Not two doors down, at my daughter's favorite store (she likes to watch the doggies in the window) we find this:

I see what's happening now. Evidently the 2500-block of Shaughnessy Street has been struck by an apostrophe drought (and what's with the "$$$"?), a diagnosis confirmed by the presence of the Peoples Drug Mart across the street.

Apostropheeble

A loyal reader (who am I kidding?--the loyal reader who happens to be a longtime friend) sends along this gem of a sign that she saw in a local Tim Horton's:

Thanks, Denise. I'm going to take credit for the find and send this off to Apostrophe Catastrophes. And, as usual, Denise and I had the Vulcan mind-meld thing happening, because today I had my own apostrophe catastrophe to catalogue. And as it turns out, this catastrophe occurs in the description of a tragedy.

For years now, I have been going for runs on the waterfront trails at Rocky Point Park in Port Moody, and for years I have been plodding past a plaque affixed to a rock--a plaque I have never stopped to read (an accomplished endurance athlete doesn't break stride to sight-see, after all). But what the heck, I'm on vacation, and feeling more contemplative than competitive, so this time I stopped and read it.

Sad story. But I must point out that, unless we're dealing with some paranormal event where one unfortunate soul left multiple bodies, that apostrophe in "victim's" needs to be nudged over to the right to indicate plural-ness. And now that I think of it, those three badly injured men were also victims, yet presumably their bodies were not wrapped in muslin and set on fire, so maybe "victim's bodies" should have been "dead men's bodies."

But now for a different brand of light-hearted amusement. If you're looking for an eye-catching, quirky overview of apostrophe usage (and who isn't?), I beseech you to look at this. But be forewarned: if you start noodling around with the all the other features on the website (things like "Why I'd rather be punched in the testicles than call Customer Service") I will not be responsible for the lost hours of your life.

All About Eves

The local Megabite Pizza franchise has sent out a flyer promoting their "New Years Eve delivery special." I would make mock about the lameness of ordering in pizza to ring in the new year, but we're going to a family-focused party, where we watch the live Eastern time zone feeds from Times Square and get home to bed by 11 o'clock, so who am I to judge?

I will, however, pass judgment on that missing apostrophe. It is the eve of the New Year--in other words,  New Year's Eve, a possessive. So why don't we say "Christmas's Eve" or, for that matter, "New Year Eve?" I'll pour another rum-laced eggnog and ponder that. 

They'll Have To Turn In Those Leather Vests For Editing

In last Saturday's Vancouver Sun the headline reads:

POLICE CHIEF TARGETS
HELLS ANGELS

I checked the body copy in case it was a typo, but no--the name of the biker gang appeared several times in the text, each time without the possessive apostrophe that is so obviously needed. As the Sun is a credible newspaper, I can only surmise that the Hells Angels, despite their reputation for grammatical punctiliousness, don't use an apostrophe in their name. I'll have to point this out the next time I see one of their associates.